Logan
FOB near the Spratly Islands
I wake with a strangled scream, the sound ripped from my throat. My lungs burn like I’ve been choking on smoke, my shoulder’s on fire, and sweat slicks my skin, dampening the sheets that twist around my legs like restraints.
The dream clings. Ryan’s voice crackles in my headset.
His last words are Reaper’s—I got you—and then the world explodes.
The hiss of the missile screaming past me, the roar of fire engulfing his jet, the sharp pop of static over comms, the gut-punch silence after.
His face morphing into Reap’s is the last thing I see before the sky swallows him whole, and the echo of their names tears through me even as I jolt awake.
Minutes pass—or maybe seconds—before I can convince my body to move.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and wait for the tremor in my hands to subside.
I sit there in the dark, chest heaving, heart jackhammering against my ribs.
My shoulder throbs in time with it—a cruel reminder that none of this is just a dream.
I press the heels of my palms into my eyes, like I can scrub the images away, but they burn deeper, brighter.
I press my feet against the cool concrete floor and force myself to start the day. To get in the shower, get dressed, and get to PT.
To step into the newest circle of hell—passive range of motion.
That’s what they call it when someone else moves your arm because you can’t.
It feels more like torture.
***
My fingers curl into the padded table as Staff Sergeant Keller gently lifts my arm overhead. I breathe through my nose and focus on the ceiling, where a fan spins with lazy indifference. Each inch higher feels like he’s ripping through my shoulder.
“Try to relax, Captain,” Keller says, his voice calm but firm.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Working on it.”
He doesn’t respond. Just keeps lifting, inch by inch. My shoulder burns. I swear it’s laughing at me.
“You’re holding your breath again,” Keller says. “Breathe through it.”
I exhale slowly, jaw clenched so tight it aches. “You ever try relaxing while someone tears your arm off?”
“I’ve had worse patients,” he says, deadpan. “One guy punched me in the face during an isometric stretch.”
I snort, despite myself. “Bet he got better faster.”
“He passed out two seconds later.”
I close my eyes, breathing through another wave of pain. “Sounds about right.”
We lapse into silence. Keller gently lowers my arm back down and reaches for the towel draped over a heating pad.
“You’re stronger than you were last week,” he says.
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
“That’s because you’re still in it. When you’re climbing out of a hole, you don’t notice the progress until you’re staring at daylight.”
“I’m not exactly climbing,” I say. “More like…crawling in circles.”
The circles of hell.
He unwraps the heating pad and lays it across my shoulder. “Crawling’s still forward.”
“Not when it feels like I’m going nowhere.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just adjusts the heat, then starts prepping for the next stretch.
“Your range is increasing. It’s slow, but it’s there.
And you’re here, doing the work. That’s more than most.” He pauses, glances at me.
“You know,” Keller begins casually, “you pilots always look like you’re slumming it when you’re in fatigues. ”
I give a humorless chuckle. “That obvious?” I’m not wearing them now—had to change into PTs—but I get what he’s saying.
He shrugs. “You guys walk different in flight suits. Like you’re made for the sky. That,” he gestures toward my uniform draped over the chair in the corner, “makes you look like the rest of us.”
I glance away, jaw tight. “I’ve worn a flight suit since the academy. Since I got my fighter slot. First time in over a decade I’m not on flight status.”
“Still a pilot,” Keller says. “Uniform doesn’t change that.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
He doesn’t push. Just picks up my arm again, moving it gently. “You’ll fly again.”
I close my eyes. “I used to believe that too,” I murmur.
The stretch deepens. Pain flares. But I don’t ask him to stop.
It’s later that day that Sutton finally breaks through, and for the first time, I find myself talking about Ryan.
It’s taken twelve sessions before I’m able to let my guard down, but once I do, it hurts worse than I ever imagined.
Talking about how my best friend used his body as a shield to save my life...
It leaves me feeling more lost and twisted than I was before.
I can’t escape the agony coiling tightly around me.
The nights are still the worst. When I close my eyes, I see Ryan’s face, hear his laugh, feel the crushing affliction of all the things I didn’t say, didn’t do.
It’s in those moments I wonder if I’m beyond fixing.
If this grief, this guilt, is just who I am now.
But then the words come back, soft but unyielding.
You can’t carry it all.
Maybe that’s why I keep going back to that clinic, even when every fiber of me wants to skip the sessions, to retreat into the numbness I know too well. Because part of me wants to believe he’s right—that there’s a way to set it down, even if it’s just for a moment.
***
It’s less than a week later that I’m sitting in the hallway outside the clinic, waiting for the counselor to call me in for our fifteenth session. Today is one of those days where the heat is unbearable, the air thick and stagnant.
I don’t feel much of anything.
The numbness is almost comforting.
Major Townsend steps out of the counselor’s office, his eyes finding me immediately.
I catch the subtle shift in his posture, something reserved, almost careful.
There are only two reasons he’d be coming out of that room.
The first is to meet with my counselor to check in on my progress, but that meeting was yesterday.
Which leaves the second—he’s here for his own session.
There’s a quiet understanding between us now.
He doesn’t say anything, just sits next to me on the bench, his gaze forward, not giving me an explanation.
“How are you holding up?” he asks, his voice low.
I glance at him. “I’m…getting through it. One day at a time.”
“You are. You still have a ways to go,” he says, but there’s no judgment in his tone. It’s not a demand or an accusation. Just a fact.
“I’ll be ready soon,” I reply, though I’m not sure I believe it myself.
“You will,” he says, his voice firm. “I know it’s hard. I know you think you can just push through it like you always do, but that’s not going to work this time.”
No, it isn’t. I’m broken. In need of repair which I guess is what this assortment of therapy is.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” I admit, the words slipping out before I can stop them. The weight of my admission feels heavier than it should. “Reaper. Then Ryan. Now Lila… I fucked it up. I fucked everything up.”
We always knew the risks.
Townsend doesn’t say anything for a long moment, but when he does, it’s not what I expect. “You’re not a robot, Logan. You’re allowed to hurt. But you’ve got to be honest with yourself. If you keep running from this, you’ll never move forward.”
Maybe it’s the vulnerability in his voice.
Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m not being treated like a broken machine.
Maybe it’s the grief sessions.
I’m not sure but it stirs the emotions inside me.
Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault.